Amazon Cloud Player

Amazon’s impressed us with the strength of its MP3 catalog, and the frequent deals it offers on albums. A lot of times, we find ourselves going there for music instead of iTunes, especially because the whole process has been made so simple. Now it’s taking a crack at a music playback app for OS X, essentially replicating the “tunes” part of iTunes. Amazon Cloud Player (Free) was previously accessible over the web, but now it can be downloaded directly to your Mac.

Cloud Player hooks up to your Amazon account, and automatically identifies any music you’ve downloaded through its digital storefront. As a bonus, this includes the song files of many physical CDs bought through the company, meaning you don’t have to worry about ripping past purchases. From there, you can play music, make playlists, or do anything else you’d expect from a music app. Additionally, you can upload your own music, including songs purchased from iTunes, to the cloud. The first 250 songs are free, while you can do up to 250,000 for $25 a year.